Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 404

 

Here are two excerpts from a book I recently read, "Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime," by Ron Stallworth.

 

In the November 1924 general election other Klan-supported candidates swept to victory. The governor, Clarence J. Morley, was a Klansman; the two US senators, Rice Means and Lawrence Phipps, had strong Klan connections; and the Klan held the offices of lieutenant governor, state auditor, and attorney general. Another Klansman, William J. Candlish, was selected by the Grand Dragon to be chief of police for the Denver Police Department, and was officially appointed by Mayor Stapleton. In addition, Klansmen were seated on the Board of Regents for the University of Colorado and the State Supreme Court. The City of Denver and State of Colorado, in essence, were under Klan control. So pervasive was the Klan's control and influence in Colorado that certain national publications began spelling Colorado with a K. 

 

I have often been asked, "What did you really accomplish over the course of this investigation without arresting any Klan members or seizing any illegal contraband?"

My answer is always in this fashion: "As a result of our combined effort, no parent of a black or other minority child, or any child for that matter, had to explain why an eighteen-foot cross was seen burning at this or that location – especially those individuals from the South who, perhaps as children, had experienced the terrorist act of a Klan cross burning."